California Mother, 31, Shot 5 Times While Saving Her Kids From Gunman Gets Ignored By Bystanders

Bleeding from the five bullets she took while protecting her children in the Tehama Counting shooting, a desperate mother begged strangers to save her. Instead of rushing to her aid, passersby refused to help!

“I just kept on praying that he’d go away because I can’t take another bullet. I knew I wouldn’t make it,” Tiffany Phommathep told KCRA when recounting her brush with death. The 31-year-old mother barely survived the horrific shooting at Rancho Tehama Elementary school on Nov. 14. Tiffany was dropping her children off when Kevin Neal, 44, began his deadly attack. Tiffany threw herself around her 10-year-old son, John Jr., who was sitting in the passenger seat, using her body as a shield.

After taking five bullets – four in her back left shoulder and one in her hip – Tiffany pulled herself into the driver’s seat and sped away to a nearby gas station, according to the Los Angeles Times. She and her sons screamed for help, but no one did anything. “[I] found some more strength to open my window, my door and I hopped out to her and asked her, ‘Can you help? I’m shot, I’m dying, and my kids are in the car.’ She said she couldn’t help me because she only had a two-seater and she was late for work,” Tiffany said. “That hurt my heart a lot to hear her say that.”

After driving several more miles, she was able to flag down a police car, and Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston stopped to help. “She … crawled out, bleeding,” her husband, Johnny Phommathep, told the Los Angeles Times. “If it wasn’t for him, my wife wouldn’t be here.”

The couple’s three children were injured during the shooting, John Jr. was shot twice in the calf, while Jake, 6, was shot in the foot. Their two-year-old son, Nikos, was cut by exploding glass. Thankfully, he wasn’t shot, but a bullet narrowly missed the toddler Jake, according to his father, said that “’we went to school and someone shot us with paintballs. It hit my feet, and I need new shoes now.’ Shows how innocent kids are.”

The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help them cover their medial expenses. Sadly, the Phommathep were familiar with Kevin, as he was one of their neighbors in Tehama County. The family got used to seeing Kevin fight with his neighbor, Danyn Elliott, who had a 7-year-old son.

“In the middle of the night, they’d get into screaming matches,” Johnny said, claiming Neal would shout how he was “gonna kill you, and when your boy’s at school, I’m gonna kill him, too.” Sadly, Kevin would attempt to make good on that threat, killing five people in the process.

He began his Nov. 14 rampage at his blue Bobcat Lane trailer on Nov. 13, when he killed his wife, Barbara Glisan, 38, and hid her body under the floor. The next day, his attack took the lives of Danny Elliott, 38, Diana Steele, 68, Joseph McHugh III, 56, and Michelle McFadyen, 55. Kevin was killed in a shootout with the police. While a total of six children – four boys and two girls – were injured, all survived this tragedy.